Lead Generation for the Complex Sale: Boost the Quality and Quantity of Leads to Increase Your ROI (Hardcover)

~ Brian Carroll (Author)
Key Phrases: lead generation plan, ideal customer profile, lead nurturing, Aberdeen Group, Cahners Research, Anne Holland (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Presents a strategic, multi-modal approach to generating highly profitable leads Lead Generation for the Complex Sale arms sales you with a proven approach to generating qualified leads for complex sales. The complex sale, a synthesis of consultative, competitive, and team selling that targets potential buyers for team service solutions, is the norm in today's B2B environment. You'll learn to define your ideal leads and target your sales approaches; align sales and marketing to optimize the number of leads; build strong lead pipelines; use multiple lead generation vehicles, including email, PR, referrals, speaking events; and more.

"If you can't generate a solid flow of good leads, your sales force - and your company - will fail. Yet, for most organizations, lead generation is a hit-or-miss affair. In this well written book you'll find practical and useful tools for building your sales and marketing efforts into a powerful system to generate high quality leads."
--Neil Rackham, author of SPIN Selling

Brian Carroll "gets" that marketing and sales must have a common definition of a lead and a "sales-ready" lead is a targeted decision maker who is curious how you have helped someone with the same job title in the same industry achieve a goal or solve a problem.
--Mike Bosworth, author of Solution Selling and coauthor of CustomerCentric Selling

"Leads are the lifeblood of selling. This book is the lifeblood of lead generation."
--Jeffrey J. Fox, best selling author of Secrets of Great Rainmakers

"Read this book and take the complexities out of your lead gen activities!"
--Anthony Parinello author, Getting to VITO, the Very Important Top Officer

"Carroll has provided a very helpful book for companies that are involved in complex sales. Too many marketing departments provide the sales force with a high number of leads but not with a high number of quality leads. Carroll provides many ideas and lists to help companies improve, manage, and measure their lead generation performance. He does an excellent job of describing the use of the major contact tools for lead generation and nurturing."
-- Philip Kotler, Ph.D., S. C. Johnson & Son Distinguished Professor of International Marketing, Kellogg School of Management/Northwestern University

Great book! I heartily recommend Lead Generation for the Complex Sale because it's packed with practical, hands-on advice. In particular, chapter 3, 'Defining Your Best Lead,' should be required reading for CSOs and CMOs alike before you invest in any more demand generation campaigns!
--Anne Holland, Publisher, MarketingSherpa Inc

"The lead generation game has changed in the age of the Internet. If you don't have this new playbook your competitors will. Brian Carroll closes the loop on lead generation, taking you from defining a lead, thinking like your prospects, tactics to increase lead generation, passing leads from marketing to sales, measuring the results, and nurturing the leads for increased revenue. If you don't read and then apply lessons from Lead Generation for the Complex Sale, then let me know how things work out for you."
--Bryan Eisenberg, New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestselling author of Call To Action

"Great book on a very important topic. The author speaks from a true knowledge-base and offers a 'Soup-to-Nuts' instruction of principles, strategies, and tactics from which the reader can greatly profit."
-- Bob Burg, author of Endless Referrals: Network Your Everyday Contacts into Sales

"Brian Carroll has unveiled some of the most guarded secrets of lead generation experts. His approach to generating leads for the complex sale is not only on-target but will produce results as well."
--John M. Coe, president, Sales & Marketing Institute

"It's never been tougher to crack into corporate accounts. To help your sales force, create a lead generation program based on the multiple strategies in this information-rich book. In today's crazy market, it's the best way to slash your sales cycle."
--Jill Konrath, Chief Sales Officer, Leapfrog Strategies and author of Selling to Big Companies

"Brian Carroll has written a no-nonsense, practical guide to sales lead generation that will help anybody who is looking for advice based on real-world experience. He makes the case for a strong working relationship between the sales and marketing functions."
--Ruth P. Stevens, president, eMarketing Strategy and author of Trade Show and Event Marketing

"Brian Carroll gives us insightful lessons in the complete sales lead management process, including the critical organizational issues that will determine success or failure. Read it, and start putting Brian's advice to work immediately."
--Bob Donath, Bob Donath & Co., marketing author and consultant

"Does your company have an uncrossable abyss between your sales and marketing functions? If so, than this book will help you bridge that gap and fill the void. If you follow a few of his simple concepts, you will be able to drive significantly enhanced sales and marketing effectiveness."
--Guy R. Powell, DemandROMI - Prove and Improve your Marketing Performance, author, Return on Marketing Investment

"Brian's book is an absolute must-read for any B-to-B marketers."
--Russell Kern, president, THE KERN ORGANIZATION

"Finally, a book that addresses the realities of today's selling environment. Brian Carroll has broken new ground in this comprehensive, utterly practical, and thoughtful guide to sales lead generation."
--Michael W. McLaughlin, coauthor of Guerrilla Marketing for Consultants

"The quality and quantity of leads do as much to determine sales success as face-to-face selling prowess, yet little has been written about lead generation. This book fills the void. Carroll really understands lead generation."
--Ford Harding, author of Creating Rainmakers, Harding & Company

"This book is essential reading for anyone in marketing today. It will make a difference in your company's lead generation results!"
--Dan Kosch & Mark Shonka, co-presidents of IMPAX Corporation and co-authors of the best-selling book, Beyond Selling Value

"If Lead Generation for the Complex Sale helps your business grow half as fast as Brian Carroll's has, it may be the best marketing and sales investment you make all year."
-- Keith Ferrazzi, CEO of sales consulting and training, Ferrazzi Greenlight and former CMO of Starwood Hotels and Deloitte Consulting

"Exhaustive coverage and discussion of the lead generation modalities and the synergies therein ranging from the classical modes such as telemarketing and direct mail through the new generation modes as blogs and podcasts is insightful. A very compelling read indeed."
--Sharmila C. Chatterjee, Visiting Professor, MIT

"The time has come for sales and marketing teams to finally unite to create and solidify customer relationships. This book provides sound execution strategies for collaboration that leads to results."
--Barbara Geraghty, president, Visionary Selling

"Lead Generation for the Complex Sale is an important and intelligent addition to the small but growing body of literature on business-to-business sales lead generation."
--Bob Bly, author, The Copywriter's Handbook

"Chapter six alone is worth the price of the book. If you're puzzled about the nuts and bolts of building a lead gen plan that actually works, you're in luck. It's right here."
--Chris Coleman, speaker, author and co-founder, greenbananaproject.com

From the Inside Flap

With the complex sale emerging as the norm in today’s business-to-business environment, it’s more challenging than ever to keep a consistent stream of qualified leads in your sales pipeline. You’ve probably lost critical hours by relying on outdated methods or spinning your wheels looking for new tactics to push the sales needle forward.

Lead Generation for the Complex Sale arms you with a sophisticated multimodal approach to generating highly profitable leads. Brian Carroll, CEO of InTouch Incorporated and expert in lead generation solutions, reveals key strategies that you can implement immediately to win new customers, accelerate growth, and improve your sales performance.

You'll start by defining your ideal leads and targeting your ideal customer. Then, you'll construct your lead generation plan, a crucial step to staying ahead of your competition long-term. To help you put your plan into action, Carroll guides you step by step to:

• Align sales and marketing efforts to optimize the number of leads
• Use multiple lead generation vehicles, including e-mail, referrals, public relations, speaking events, webinars, and more
• Create value for the prospective customer throughout the buying process
• Manage a large group of leads without feeling overwhelmed
• Identify and prioritize your best prospects
• Increase the percentage of leads who become profitable customers
• Avoid lulls in the sales cycle
• How to increases the percentage of leads who become profitable customers
• Know how to identify and prioritize your best prospects
• Ready yourself for what's next – new and promising tactics

With Lead Generation for the Complex Sale you'll learn how to target prospects early in the buying process and make the most efficient use of sales productivity and marketing resources. Plus, you’ll pursue and capture future opportunities for viable leads.

In a business environment where your competition is growing and your budget is inevitably shrinking, Lead Generation for the Complex Sale gives you the power to drive a fast, optimal return on your investment and keep a steady stream of new customers coming your way.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill; 1 edition (May 17, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0071458972
• ISBN-13: 978-0071458979
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (33 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #11,550 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

27 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Overly academic book with little real information, December 9, 2006

By	J. Laabs (Madison, WI USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

As a VP of Sales & Marketing for a company with a complex sales process, I recognize the importance and difficulty of lead generation. Unfortunately, this book gives absolutely no quality information or insights into how to generate leads more efficiently. The tone of the book is academic - it strives to sound important but ends up in most instances saying nothing. Here's an excerpt from a section headed "Iterative Approach with Tactics": "By manipulating tactics to perform just a little bit better, it is hypothetically possible to double the response rate for a program without increasing spending. That said, the appropriate action is to optimize your tactics continuously and incrementally as performance dictates..." I think the author is saying that you can generate twice as many leads if you improve your lead generation program, especially if your current program isn't very good. In terms of content, the first 80+ pages pretty much make two points over and over: (1) that sales and marketing have to work together for successful lead generation, and (2) you need to define what a "lead" is. The other 120 pages of the book skim lightly over various methods of lead generation - none of the methods are new or imaginative; they are the same methods any marketing professional is already familiar with. If you are brand new to the idea of lead generation, this book will give you an overview, but if you're experienced and looking for new and imaginative insights, look elsewhere.

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The sales pipeline is any organization's lifeline., June 6, 2007

By	Robert Morris (Dallas, Texas) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

For as long as I can remember, I have heard the assertion that "sales is a numbers game." For Brian Carroll, this means that the more qualified leads you have, the more you will sell and that is especially true of the complex sale. However, he acknowledges "unique demands" that limit the process of lead generation: fewer opportunities, commoditization is more difficult to overcome with differentiation (I'm not convinced of that, at least insofar as "big ticket" purchases are concerned), increased selling at the executive level, involving those who comprise the sphere of influence, less selling time (usually in combination with a longer sales cycle), and ROI. To these I would add that buyers are much more sophisticated in what has become a "customer-driven" sales environment. So the challenge is to initiate and then sustain lead generation for the complex sale. More specifically, Carroll, explains how to:

Build an ideal customer profile
Talk to your best customers
Build your personal prospecting engine
Develop a lead generation calendar
Act like a good financial manager
Define your goals for lead generation
Rigorously qualify
Be consistent
Develop a lead nurturing plan
Develop and maintain your own database

What Carroll provides in this book is a comprehensive, cohesive, and cost-effective program to initiate and then sustain lead generation for the complex sale. He has carefully organized his material as follows:

Part One: Fundamentals of lead Generation for the Complex Sale
Part Two: Lead Generation Tactics for the Complex Sale
Part Three: Lead Development for the Complex Sale

For me, some of the most valuable material is provided in Chapter Four as he explains why the ROI of lead generation depends on the quality of data: "There is an old expression that says if you have eight hours to cut down a tree, spend six hours sharpening your ax. So it goes with creating [and then maintaining] the marketing database for companies that specialize in the complex sale. The marketing database is crucial to any lead generation program. Experts agree that it can influence the program's success by a factor of 50 percent. Unfortunately it is still one of the most overlooked tools in many companies' lead generation strategies." Especially now when there is so much information readily available (at little or no cost), there is no excuse for not having all that needs to be known about relevant industries, client prospects, their competitors, key contacts at each prospect company (including those who comprise what Michael Boylan aptly characterizes as the "circle of influence"), the prospect company's history, and its current circumstances (e.g. nature and extent of operations, financials, what it sells and to whom).

Then in Chapter Five, Carroll shares his thoughts about another especially important subject, the value proposition, and its function within the complex sale's purchase process. In this context, I am again reminded of a conversation years ago during which someone suggested that there are three very basic questions anyone in marketing or sales must be prepared to answer. The first two usually pose no difficulties but the third one often does:

Who are you?
What do you do?
Why should I care?

Hence the importance of the value proposition. According to Carroll, an appropriate one "focuses on the contacts within your ideal customer profile. The potential customer has business issues that it needs - and wants - resolved. The potential customer must know the difference between opting for your solution and doing nothing. The potential customer must be convinced that you represent the best solution." (Jeff Thull calls it the "prime solution.") It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of carefully formulating and then effectively explaining an appropriate value proposition, especially when a complex sale is involved. Without one, the given lead generation process - however efficient and productive it may be - will simply increase the number of wasted opportunities.

Obviously, it would be a fool's errand to accumulate lots of ideas from only one source or, worse yet, from a wide range of sources and then attempt to apply each of them. There is much truth in the suggestion that a camel is a horse designed by a committee. That said....

Those who share my high regard for this book are urged to check out thee books by Thull: Mastering the Complex Sale: How to Compete and Win When the Stakes are High! (2003), The Prime Solution: Close the Value Gap, Increase Margins, and Win the Complex Sale (2005), and Exceptional Selling: How the Best Connect and Win in High Stakes Sales (2006). Also these: Boylan's The Power to Get In: A Step-by-Step System to Get in Anyone's Door So You Have the Chance to... Make the Sale... Get the Job... Present Your Ideas (1996 and still relevant) and Accelerants: Twelve Strategies to Sell Faster, Close Deals Faster, and Grow Your Business Faster (2006), and, Anthony Parinello's Selling To VITO (The Very Important Top Officer) first published 1999 and also still relevant and Getting to VITO: 10 Steps to VITO's Office (2005).

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Finally -- Practical Advice for Solving a Pressing Problem, July 6, 2006

By	Ed Gandia -- www.EdGandia.com (Atlanta, GA) - See all my reviews

Here's the harsh reality: In complex B2B selling situations, the traditional lead generation model is broken.

The story is all too familiar. Marketing points the finger at sales. Sales blames marketing. And in the process, the problem continues to escalate. So what happens? Executive management gets involved. And they either start scrutinizing every marketing dollar -- or worse yet, cut the marketing budget. No one wins.

As Brian Carroll points out, the only way to break this destructive cycle is to take a more holistic approach to lead generation. An approach that starts with mutually defining (by both sales, marketing and other stakeholders) what makes a lead "sales-ready." Only then can a company develop and execute a truly effective, multi-modal approach to lead generation. And only then can a company start seeing exponentially better results without a commensurate increase in effort, complexity or budget.

I've been in both sides of the fence: sales and marketing. The problem with many books on this topic is that they tend to be out of touch with the full nature of the problem. They're either written by a marketer with little street-level sales experience, or a salesperson with a poor understanding of the marketing function. Or even worse, an academic who's never been out there -- taking a beating and feeling the pressure every day.

Not so with Lead Generation for the Complex Sale. Brian Carroll takes a balanced approach to a pressing problem. He breaks it down into actionable steps any B2B organization with a complex sale can profit from.

It's full of real-world, practical information that works. And it's written by a guy who eats his own medicine every day.

Buy this book. Better yet, read it and apply the ideas. The results will surprise you.